When the gavel came down I left the courtroom through the side door. Immediately on the other side of the door a deputy asked me for my tie and my shoelaces. Once I complied he had me take about another 3 steps through a door that he closed behind me.
There was no handle on the inside. Not even a keyhole. Just a solid door with a 2-inch-wide piece of wire-reinforced glass at eye level with a view of an empty, white, cinderblock hallway. The window was so narrow that I could only look out of it with 1 eye at a time unless I turned my head sideways. The door to the courtroom was visible, but it hurt my head to try to focus on it.
Inside the cell was a stainless steel sink-toilet combo. There was a hole in the side of it that could fit a roll of toilet paper, but there wasn’t any toilet paper. The walls were made of cinderblocks and a bench was built into it out of those very same cinderblocks. Fluorescent lights beamed down on me from the 10-foot high ceiling. There was no light switch.
The only thing separating me and the courtroom was a single wall of cinderblocks. Today I wonder if I banged hard enough if people on the other side would be able to hear. Not with my fists, but by turning my back to the wall and donkey-kicking the shit out of it. I learned to do that a few months later when I went to the hole, but that type of barbaric behavior didn’t even cross my mind at the time.
An unknown amount of time later I was shackled up. Legs cuffed and chained together. Hands cuffed in front with a little black box over the chain forcing the insides of my wrists to face each other at all times. Another chain to go around my waist and attach to the black box and the chains between my feet. I was taken down a secret elevator in the back with the other people going to jail that day and into a car park underneath the courthouse that I didn’t know existed.
I approached the steps of the van and thought, “this chain between my legs isn’t long enough to climb these steps.”
As if reading my mind, the deputy said, “they’re long enough. Sit in the back,” and then to the group, “girls in the front row.”
There were no seatbelts.
The gate to the carpark lifted and the driver tore out of there like a smuggler crossing a border.
“How much time did you get?” one of the girls asked as if she knew me.
“Me? 4 years.”
“Damn!" she said, “I got 9 months, time-served.”
I didn’t know who she was or what that meant, but I later found out that she was the daughter of my 3rd grade teacher and she knew exactly who I was. She had been following my case in the newspaper because it was exactly the same as hers - involuntary manslaughter for driving way too fast, losing control, and losing the lives of our friends. She had already served 9 months while awaiting sentencing so she was going back to the jail to be released that day. I was out on bond before sentencing so I was about to spend my first night in jail.
As soon as I stepped foot in jail I was treated like a liar and a thief.
I was taken to a big empty cell with a window in the side of it. The deputy was on the other side of the window and asked, “you got anything in your pockets?”
“No,” I said.
“Take off your clothes, one article at a time,” he commanded.
I guess he didn’t believe me then, so I complied. Then had to raise my arms, stick out my tongue, lift my sack, turn around, squat, and cough. A routine I would become quite familiar with over the next few years.
He handed me a set of green scrubs to put on and gave me a pair of blue canvas slip-on shoes and sent me back out into the booking cell with the rest of the people from the van. Just the men — the women were taken somewhere else.
Cornwhistle1 would tell me a story a few months later. He knew there was a warrant for his arrest, so whenever he would transport heroin he’d tie it to his nuts so that when he got arrested they wouldn’t find it.
“I was driving through town and they came outta nowhere,” he said with his characteristic drawl. “A bunch of big black SUVs pulled out from the woods — I didn’t even know there were woods in that part of town! It was like they thought I was Walter White or something. They rammed my car, pulled guns on me, tackled me when I got out the car. They did their little pat down and didn’t find the dope so I thought I was in good shape. As long as that one dirtbag ain’t workin’ they won’t strip search me once I get to the jail.”
But he shook his head, “just my motherfuckin’ luck he was working that day and he found it. So now they’re tryin’ to charge me with smuggling drugs into a government institution, those bastards.”
In the main booking cell I was waiting in line to see the nurse in the booking area. There were maybe 8 other guys there. 6 of them were transfers from a smaller jail the next county over. The other 2 were arrested that day, including Hankley2, who was familiar to most of the staff.
“You again? What’d you do this time?” they’d shout as they were walking by the cell where we were all sitting eating hot dogs and baked beans.
“Running a business without a business license,” he’d say.
“Oh,” was the usual response - more of an “oh that sounds like some bullshit“ rather than “oh that makes sense”.
The other guy who got arrested that day was in his early 20s and real quiet. He went in to see the nurse first, but he didn’t come back into the booking cell before the next person was called.
“Oh, he got the turtle suit!” everyone exclaimed with surprise.
The confused look on my face gave me the answer I needed.
“They strip you naked and put you in this green suit that you can’t rip up and kill yourself with. Then they stick you in an isolation cell with a camera in it until the doc can you see you. Shit, it’s Friday though so he’ll be in there all weekend. If he didn’t really wanna kill himself today, he will after a weekend of that!”
I was called next to see the nurse.
She asked me if I had any health concerns, medications, dietary restrictions, etc. Then she looked at me and said, “I want to recommend you for suicide watch.”
“Why?” I asked with surprise.
“Because this is your first time in jail and you’ve just been sentenced to 4 years. You’re 25 years old. You fit the profile of someone who’s gonna try to kill himself.”
“Look,” I said. “I’ve got a good family and support system. I’m sad about the sentence, yea, but I’m not gonna try to kill myself. When I was 10 years old my uncle killed himself and that devastated me and I saw how it devastated my family. I’m not going to put them through that again.”
She seemed convinced but she needed to drive her point home, “ok, I’ll let you go. But if you jump off the top tier then they’ll hold me responsible. So if I get called in to help, I’m not gonna revive you. I’m gonna make sure you’re dead.”
“Damn!” I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Don’t worry, I won’t make you a murderer.”
And off to phase 1 I went3.